Race politics hit N.C. redistricting

The redistricting wars are about to hit North Carolina, and Republicans in the Tar Heel State are considering a controversial but well-worn strategy that has worked elsewhere in the South: Create a new majority-minority district while destroying other districts occupied by white Democrats.

The state’s Republicans — who are in control of the General Assembly for the first time since Reconstruction — are basically planning to blow up the current congressional map and give North Carolina a third district that has a large enough minority population to elect another African-American member of Congress. But in doing so, they’ll be drawing new lines that would secure the political safety and expand the ranks of the state’s congressional Republicans.

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The maneuvering shows that even in the new South, in a state that went for Barack Obama in 2008 and has had two straight decades of Democratic governors, congressional districts aren’t immune from old-fashioned racial gerrymandering. In a sense, North Carolina is planning to catch up to race-based redistricting that has spread across the region over the years.

And while Republicans hope for buy-in from local black political leaders, their greater goal is to end the careers of a handful of North Carolina Democrats who survived the 2010 GOP landslide. Reps. Larry Kissell, Mike McIntyre, Brad Miller and Heath Shuler could all be in danger of being drawn into Republican-majority districts.

Reps. G.K. Butterfield and Mel Watt — the two African-American Democrats from the Tar Heel State — likely would be entrenched in their minority districts, as would Rep. David Price from the more liberal Research Triangle area. The six GOP incumbents would remain safe.

“It’s politically probable that there will be a new minority influence district. … It’s logical based on the demographics of our state,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who has become the point man in Congress for the state’s redistricting.

McHenry and other North Carolina Republicans defend their redistricting efforts, saying the Tar Heel State’s booming population and the surge in Republican voters — not to mention the fact that Democrats drew the current districts — justify a new map that could give the state nine Republicans and four Democrats in Congress.

“Republicans should pick up three seats under any fair and legal map,” McHenry said. “That is huge. No other states in the nation would gain as many Republican seats. This would be in a state that Barack Obama won in 2008 and where we have had a Democratic governor since 1992 — the longest such period in the nation. A 9-4 delegation is pretty good and would attempt to avoid the risk of a bad year for Republicans. Clearly, Reps. Kissell and Miller are serving their final term.”

But Watt, a veteran of lengthy redistricting wars both in the political arena and in courtrooms, warned Republicans not to assume they will be successful in creating a third minority district.

“I haven’t seen a plan that can be credibly drawn. Nor is it legally required,” Watt said. “So I doubt that it would be practically done.”

Watt himself was embroiled in a long-term legal fight over his painfully drawn, snake-shaped minority-majority district, so his skepticism on the new North Carolina map may be a guidepost for Democrats.